The Thessaloniki-based Greek technical firm STELMA S.A. has won an international tender for the project of painting the Eiffel Tower in Paris bronze, to mark the Tower's 120th anniversary, which is being celebrated in France from March 31 (the anniversary of its inauguration in 1889) to the end of 2009.

This will be the 19th repainting of the Eiffel Tower, which is painted over in a different color every seven years.

The Tower has gone through several colors since the original red chosen by its designer and contractor, engineer Gustave Eiffel in 1889, going from red-browns to mustard yellows and ochre, back to red-brown and, more recently, variations of brown, with the color slightly hued off towards the top to ensure that the color is visually the same all the way up as it stands against the Paris sky.

The new color has been officially labelled "Tour Eiffel Bronze", while the previous paint job began in December 2001 and was completed in June 2003.

Inaugurating the new "birthday paint job", the first stroke of the paint brush was symbolically made on the 324-meter-high Eiffel Tower on Tuesday.

STELMA founder and president Eleftherios Mamatzis and his son, company vice president Dimitris Mamatzis, expressed their joy at being assigned the prestigious project, calling it "a life's dream".

Sixty tons of paint are necessary to cover the Tower's surface, which is expected to require at least 20 months, depending on the weather, while the Tower will be painted going from top to bottom, with 16 painters starting off at the initial stage, while another 10 painters will join them at the base.

The Tower will be painted in three gradated shades of bronze, going from the lightest shade at the top, while the darkest shade will begin from the base, going up to the first 56 meters.

The cost of the project is estimated at 4.5 million euros without VAT.

An estimated 60 tons of paint will be required to cover the Tower's 250,000 square meter surface, as well as 50 kilometers of security cords for the workers' safety, 2 acres of protective netting, 5,000 sanding discs, 1,500 paint brushes, an equal number of sets of workclothes and 1,000 pairs of leather gloves. All the work will be carried out by hand using only paint brushes.

The Tower will remain open to the public throughout the project.